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Victorian Integrated Non-Admitted Health Minimum Dataset

FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ aims to assist Health Services by providing an easy to access and use reference of quick answers to the most common questions about the collection.  Note that this document does not replace the VINAH manual, which is the definitive reference to the collection.

What is an indirect and direct contact?

Direct contacts are those contacts that involve the patient/client and or patient's/client’s family or carer(s).  The patient/client or patient's/client’s family or carer(s) need to be present at the contact for this contact to be counted in VINAH for HARP, PAC and SACS.
Indirect contacts can only be reported to VINAH for Palliative Care contacts.  These indirect contacts include contacts between a service provider and another person who is not the patient /client /carer /relative; for example another service provider.
Administrative Contacts are not to be reported to VINAH.  They include activities such as, but are not limited to:

• Organisation of brokered services;
• Report writing or reviewing;
• Clinically related administrative work (such as reading or researching patient notes for any purpose).

For more information on reporting Contact/Client Service Event Client Present Status and Contact/Client Service Event Session Type – refer to Section 3 of the VINAH Manual.
For more information on Contact definitions – refer to Section 2 of the VINAH Manual.

When is a group session not a group session?

A group session is when two or more patients/clients are receiving the same services at the same time from the same staff.
In practice, this should be interpreted to mean that patients/clients are receiving precisely the same services, for example they might be part of a movement or hydrotherapy class where all participants are following the same intervention at the same time.
The following situations do NOT constitute group sessions:

• Where a clinician works one-on-one with several different patients/clients in the same space over a period of time but each patient/client is following their own personalised program (for example, where several patients/clients are scheduled to use the physiotherapy gym at once).
• Where multiple persons, such as several family members and carers meet with a clinician to discuss one patient/client only.

For more information on reporting Contact/Client Service Event Session Type, refer to Section 3 of the VINAH Manual.
For more information on Group definitions – refer to Section 2 of the VINAH Manual.

When should I close this episode?

An episode is closed when the criteria for keeping the patient/client in the program is no longer met (this may differ between programs and service providers should refer to the appropriate guidelines and policy documents).
Any contacts that occur after the close of an episode are not reported to VINAH, it is therefore important to ensure that you leave an episode open until you have finished all contacts.

What is the difference between a Contact and a Client Service Event?

The definition of Client Service Event is a contact or series of contacts, between a patient/client or other person in scope, and a professional associated with a program reporting via the VINAH MDS, that is intended to be unbroken in time, that results in a dated entry being made in the patient/client record.
Client service events are intended to capture service provision from the point of view of the patient/client, rather than from the point of view the clinician or the organisation.
For reporting purposes for some program areas, multiple contacts that take place on the same day will be aggregated into a client service event. A single client service event will be derived within a single episode, where the following data elements for a patient/client, on the same day, are the same:

• Contact/Client Service Event Delivery Mode;
• Contact/Client Service event Delivery Setting;
• Contact/Client Service Event Provider;
• Contact/Client Service Event Session Type;
• Contact/Client Service Event Account Class.

For more information on Client Service Events and contact aggregation rules refer to the relevant entries under concepts and derived items in Section 2 of the VINAH Manual.

If a referral is rejected do I still need to send the referral to VINAH?

Yes. We want to know about referrals that are rejected as well as referrals that are accepted.
If a referral is not accepted we still need the following data elements sent to us;

• Date referral Received
• Date of Referral Receipt Acknowledgement
• Referral Source
• Referral Outcome
• Referral Program/Stream

For more information refer to the various Referral In data elements in Section 3 of the VINAH manual, especially Referral In Outcome.